Twitter Updates

We're not married yet, of course. We're not even engaged. Why am I using the term "we"? There is no "we," there's just "me," but I like to plan ahead.

So about that honeymoon: I live in Florida, 8 blocks from the beach...a Caribbean adventure is absolutely the wrong choice. I need some adventure. Hmm.

Choices:

1) Drive the perimeter of Iceland, stopping in the little villages along the way. Iceland is basically one big volcano that has been covered by a glacier, so everyone lives on the coast. Driving the perimeter should take about 4 or 5 days, and there are hot springs and towns and all sorts of bizarre volcano-esque sights to see along the way.

2) Wander the streets of Singapore and eat everything in sight. Singapore is renowned for having the best street-food vendors in the world, possibly better than actual restaurants. Noodles and street-meat! Delicious.

3) See the baobab trees of Madagascar. Yes, this is a beach-centric trip, but it's worlds apart from getting wasted in a Caribbean resort. Madagascar is a fascinating island-country that separated from Africa and took its own evolutionary path through life; most of the plants and animals are gone thanks to people wanting "tropical hardwood" floors in their houses, but what's left is still beautiful.

4) Hang out in Edinburgh. I have no idea what there is to do there. I just think it would be cool. Although if we were to go to the UK, my future-spouse would have to agree to making a stop in southern England to see Highclere Castle from "Downton Abbey." Hey, marriage isn't always easy. You have to do things to make each other happy.

The new Madonna song, "Girls Gone Wild," is hitting the airwaves with the usual fanfare. It's alright. However, I am especially excited to see the video features my favorite Ukranian pop group, Kazaky!

Here is Madonna's video. See the dancers with the skinny legs, wearing high-heels?

This is one of their original videos that I like:

Watch to the end to see the shoes.
Here's another video and it is beautiful, although the song is a little Euro-pop techno rough:

I'm surprised people haven't mentioned these guys are in the video with her. I saw them perform here in Miami last year, and they were spectacular. Cirque du Soleil acrobats don't have the balance that these guys have to dance like that in platform heels.

Harvey sends his best. I say "his" only because I named him Harvey. I know not his gender.

Harvey's having a nice time at Chez Renz. We are getting to know each other. His hobbies include eating leaves, walking around, and taking naps. He is not a fan of being in the sun; when I put his box in the window to get some light, he runs under the leave and hangs upside-down until I put him in the shadows again. I guess he's worried about his complexion? I don't know. Other catepillars don't seem to mind being in the sun, so I don't know what Harvey's issue is. Maybe he's just picky.

Harvey was one of the numerous Monarch catepillars crawling around on my milkweed plants, so I grabbed him and brough him inside to raise him, in the hopes that at least one of them will make it to become a butterfly and not get destroyed by the "gardner" or one of the numerous evil bugs that lurk amongst the flowers. He's not growing very fast, but maybe it's just because he's petite. I get him a fresh leaf every day to eat.

Hopefully Harvey is enjoying his stay, and he'll form a cocoon soon in the safety of his box.

I gave one of your employees, a bartender, a tip of a dollar and I would like it back.

Let me explain why, please. I was very busy at work today, so I ordered food via your web site and dashed out of my office to pick it up. I ordered a sandwich and some soup. The sandwich came with French fries. I paid with a credit card on the web site, so I could just run in-and-out. So busy.

As there was no host/hostess at the door, I asked the bartender if I could pick up food. She went into the kitchen, and then returned with a check for me to sign; she handed it to me, and walked away. I signed it, and added a $1.00 tip, because there was a line there to add a tip...so I added one.

I was handed my food by a food-runner, who gave it to me and walked away. So I left; but then I looked in the bag, and saw there was no spoon.

Spoons are helpful when eating soup. I dare say they are a necessity. When you don't give me a spoon with soup, it's like not giving me the soup at all. I can't eat it. You would have not made any less of a failed meal if you had just given me an empty Styrofoam bowl with a note inside that said "Gotcha!" and a smiley face.

I walked back and asked the bartender for a spoon; she sighed. She didn't say anything, she was just soooooo exhausted by my question, she had to sigh. She asked around, and then produced one from the back somewhere. I turned to leave again, but looked in the bag out of curiosity...no ketchup either. Ketchup isn't as big of a deal; but since no one asked me if I needed anything, I took it upon myself to ask the food-runner as he passed if there were ketchup packets. He went on the hunt.

It seems no one has ever asked for ketchup before at Chili's. No one knew where it was. They looked everywhere! They shouted out of the kitchen door! Alas, there weren't any to be found...ketchup, WHERE IS THE KETCHUP? Is it here? Is it under this? What do we do? I find this odd, as you are a restaurant that specializes in the sale of hamburgers, a common vehicle for ketchup.

The entire point of ordering something "to-go" is to eat food somewhere at a time I do not have the resources to cook for myself. Some people order take-out food because they simply don't feel like cooking. However, when you have a Chili's in the middle of an office park, and I come in during the lunch hour and I am wearing a tie, chances are I'm not sitting at home on my couch watching reruns of "The Real Housewives," within walking distance of a supply of spoons in my kitchen. I'm at work, at my desk, trying to quickly eat something because I'm rushing through my day today and I don't have any extra time for dealing with nonsense created by your bored, disgruntled food-runner.

My question seemed to frustrate your staff, which they made evident with their dirty looks obviously directed at me, while making huffing noises. Whatever, I didn't have time. I gave up and left. But this is not just about a spoon and ketchup packets. I'm tired of trying to engage in a simple transaction like buying a sandwich, and encountering a complicated process because employees don't feel like they are paid enough to care about their day-to-day existence. I know writing this letter will change nothing. At most, one of you in your offices at Chili's, Inc. will call a manager at this restaurant, that manager will give a stern lecture to the staff about "Blah blah blah customer service blah," and then the staff will say nasty things to each other in the kitchen about the manager's bad attitude. Nothing will change. No one will take any initiative to simply put a box of plastic forks/knives/spoons by the door and say "Attention employees: these are often important when eating food!" No one is accountable, no one cares. And tomorrow, someone will order soup from you, and they will receive soup without a spoon.

So I would like that dollar back. That bartender didn't do anything other than print out a receipt that had a space that said "Tip: ____.____", to which I wrote something for no reason other than feeling like I was obligated to do so. Tips are for services provided, and they gave me bad service, so they don't deserve them, right? I don't think so.

Please contact me if you would like my address for delivery of that dollar.

Monarch butterfly caterpillars are crawling around on the milkweed plants in front of my building. I don't want them to die by the hands of our barbaric "gardeners" (translation: guys who drive in a van with 'lawn service' spray-painted on the side, and hack at everything in sight). Can I bring them inside somehow? Or how do I find their cocoons? I've never seen one on any of the plants...I wonder if the caterpillars ever make it that far.

As a former Rutgers student myself, I've been following the trial of Dharun Ravi--he's the man who (is accused of having) spied on his roommate Tyler Clementi with a web cam and broadcasting a few of Clementi's romantic trysts across the web. I don't think any sex was shown; perhaps there was a little physical contact, kissing, etc., but nothing that is scandalous in itself...other than the fact that it was two men. Nonetheless, apparently the horror of being spied on, and subsequently "outed," drove Clementi to kill himself by jumping off of a bridge.

Ravi is now on trial for a variety of charges, including invasion of privacy, and then lying to police during a subsequent investigation. Under New Jersey's anti-discrimination laws, if it is proven that he wanted to harm Clementi because Clementi was gay, then that adds another level to the case and Ravi could go to prison for years. I have read a lot of information about this trial; the media has painted a picture of him as a sadist who set out to torture poor Clementi, but I don't get the impression Ravi was doing anything more than play a nasty prank on his roommate, and it went horribly awry.

Rutgers is one of the most socially-progressive universities in the country. They have an entire office of LGBT student affairs; they don't have just LGBT "awareness" events, they have "LGBT Appreciation Week," to take it beyond just being aware that the lesbians and gays and bisexuals and transgendereds are there, and actually wanting people to be happy about it. In the student housing department, if a gay student is being harrassed by his/her roommate, a quick change can usually be implemented--and that often means the aggressor is the one who is moved, actually. So if Clementi had been having a problem, the fix would not have been immediate, but it would have happened.

However, expediting the situation with the student housing officials would have required Clementi to fully explain the situation--that he was having sex with another man--and it didn't seem like Clementi was ready to broadcast this information.

Despite the fact that it's 2012 and there are gay people/transgendered people/drag queens/whoever all over the media, it doesn't mean it's smooth for everyone and the coming out process is passé. People are fragile when they are deciding what their sexual orientation really means, and seemingly-harmless acts can cause them to snap. It seems that Clementi did simply "snap"...spying with a web cam and then broadcasting it to the student population is NOT "harmless," it was meant to humiliate him, but it is certainly not in the scope of what would make a stable person kill himself/herself. Obviously there was something else going on in his head, which is what is the saddest part in my opinion.

Perhaps this is why Ravi chose to fight his case in court. His entire trail of bullying is documented in his various text messages and Twitter posts when he invited Rutgers students to watch the webcam, and when he tried to convince his friends to help cover up the situation. There is no doubt that he set up Clementi to embarrass him. So if he could just accept a plea deal and admit to what he did, why bother with risking a trial and make things worse? Probably because he wants people to believe he didn't think the situation would go this far, probably because he didn't think the "gay issue" was that big of a deal. Although it has turned into a media catchphrase, this is an excellent example of what "bullying" in the proper sense of the word: the person doing it thinks s/he is simply having fun. They aren't always malicious. Sometimes they are just too selfish to care.

Can these people be taught what they are actually doing? I think so. Here is an article about Ravi's final messages to Clementi--it seems he realizes, too late, that he went too far. Although what he did was not forgiveable and they definitely needed to separate from living together, he really didn't mean to create anything more than a stupid prank.